Would probably have ruled for puppy-kickers if the law dictated it

Published Jul 16, 2009 at 5:44 PM

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Only robots and space aliens have the temperament required to reach an impartial ruling. So what is it, Sotomayor? Robot or space alien?

This week's charade on the Hill shows how completely perverse the confirmation of Supreme Court nominees has become in our modern age. Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer -- the New Yorker who was picked to help usher Judge Sonia Sotomayor through this whole treacherous process -- spent a good portion of his questioning time Tuesday leading Judge Sotomayor through the fanciful retelling of the many times she was a terrible meanie to victims of racial discrimination and the families of plane crash victims.

And Judge Sotomayor spent a good deal of time explaining that she did not experience what humans commonly refer to as "emotions" toward these supplicants, even as she was ruling against them because they were on the wrong side of the law.

SCHUMER: Here's another case, Washington v. County of Rockland -- Rockland is a county, a suburb of New York -- which was a case involving black corrections officers who claimed that they were retaliated against after filing discrimination claims. Remember that case?

SOTOMAYOR: I do.

Obama's Supreme Choice: Sonia Sotomayor

SCHUMER: Did you have sympathy for the officers filing that case?

SOTOMAYOR: Well, to the extent that anyone believes that they've been discriminated on the basis of race, that not only violates the law, but one would have -- I wouldn't use the word "sympathy" -- but one would have a sense that this claim is of some importance, and one that the court should very seriously consider.

Thank heavens she did not use that terrible word, "sympathy," which is solely the province of biased activist judges who want to legislate from the bench. Nobody wants any part of that -- particularly not the powerless Republican minority that can neither stall Sotomayor's nomination in committee nor prevent it from being voted on by the Senate at large.

And so both Sotomayor and Schumer engaged in this bizarre kabuki where the senator helpfully accused the judge of being something of a monster, and the judge modestly demurred that, well, "monster" might be imprecise, as it generally applies to organic life forms, which she pretty clearly is not.

In further sessions, we can fully expect Republican senators to press the point that Sonia Sotomayor actually is a sane, non-sociopathic human. Should they accomplish this, her chances at confirmation will be significantly diminished.